Stratton Foundation Stepped Up For Irene Relief

Organizations also stepped up
to the plate. Many became lifelines, both for people devastated by the damage
and for those who wanted to help.

The nonprofit Stratton
Foundation made a big difference in the lives of many southern Vermont residents. Jody Bonneville a single mother from South Londonderry, was among them.

Bonneville was sifting
through the sodden wreckage of her son's room when Patti Komline called and
asked if she and Al Rogers could stop by.

Komline and Rogers had just
been hired by the Stratton Foundation to manage flood relief in the hard-hit
towns surrounding the resort.

Bonneville had suffered heavy
damage.

"I was so distracted and so overwhelmed that I
couldn't think of an excuse," she says. "I'm usually good at that."

Bonneville had struggled for
years to keep the home where she raised three sons. She's worked nights, and taken
n roommates to meet expenses.

Tropical storm Irene left her
exhausted and short on hope.

She sighs, recalling that
time: "Days of just trying to get the
water out, get it dry, bleaching." She says the mold, which became a problem,
was already starting."

Komline and Rogers came and surveyed
the damage. They asked if she'd called FEMA.

Bonneville was reluctant to
deal with a government agency. She says Komline
gave her the number and told her what to say.

"And she said, ‘I'm going to call you Monday
afternoon and make sure you did it.' And
she did -- and thank god because there is a deadline."

Bonneville was one of about
300 residents and businesses the Stratton Foundation has helped in the months
since the storm.

The foundation helped organize
volunteers to muck out flooded homes. It delivered dumpsters and dehumidifiers
and worked with local groups to make sure no one was overlooked.

Early on, Al Rogers, a
retired telecommunications expert, developed a financial assessment template
that made it easier to size up each situation quickly.

AP/Toby Talbot

Patti Komline, who works for the Stratton Foundation, also serves in the Legislature. Here, she confers with House Speaker Shap Smith.

Komline, a state legislator
from Dorset, says each case was different and demanded its own
solution.

"We'd get out in the field and see the houses,"
Komline says. "Then we'd sit down with people and organize all their resources
and paperwork and, work out a plan for them, and we'd coach them through. Then,
whatever their immediate needs were, we would call Tammy and get a check cut."

Tammy Mosher, the Stratton
Foundation director, says the effort wouldn't have been nearly so successful
without the resort's second-homeowners and visitors.

As soon as news of the disaster hit, the
resort began getting calls from out-of-state friends who wanted to help.

The Stratton Foundation had
been around since 1996, making grants to local causes. Hours after the flood,
its trustees decided to use their nonprofit status to become a central conduit
for tax deductible gifts.

Mosher says the second
homeowners not only wrote checks but offered temporary housing, blankets,
clothes.

Courtesey of Stratton Foundation

Children in New York City held bake sales, such as this one on Riverside Drive in Manhattan, to help raise money for Irene relief.

"We had kids holding lemonade stands in New York," Mosher recalls. "There were the little boys who
gave up their birthday presents. They
brought up three or four giant leaf bags full of their presents that we were
able to distribute to some of the children that lost everything."

Soon local groups also began
funneling proceeds from their fundraising efforts into the foundation's flood
relief fund. The fund allowed contributions to be earmarked for specific
towns.

David Coates chairs the
Vermont Long Term Disaster Recovery Group, a statewide nonprofit. He says the
Stratton Foundation became a model.

Coates says Komline and
Rogers put on a workshop for his newly formed group.

"And then they put on a workshop for other
long term recovery committees. And I know that FEMA was so impressed with them
that they asked them to do this in Massachusetts."

Stuart Comstock-Gay is
president of the Vermont Community Foundation, which has managed special funds
for farm relief, mobile home recovery and some regional organizations.

Comstock-Gay says there will
always be a need for government agencies like FEMA and the National Guard, that
can mobilize a massive disaster response. But Vermont's recovery shows that smaller, charitable groups can
play a key role too.

"What philanthropy can do," says Comstock-Gay,
"is often be very quick, very nimble and address things on a very local level
in a way that governments can't always do."

Jody Bonneville is a good
example.

The single mother from South Londonderry did receive a FEMA check. But Bonneville had left
some things out of her FEMAS application -- including her clothes dryer. With Komline's help, she appealed to FEMA, but
was told her case was closed.

Then she got an email from
Komline, directing her to a store in Manchester and telling her pick out a dryer. The storeowner had
been told to send the bill to the Stratton Foundation.

Even now, a year later,
Bonneville says that every time she uses her dryer, she smiles.

Bonneville says she's
grateful for FEMA's help.

"But the
Stratton Foundation is just a whole ‘nother level," she adds. "They care, and
they continue to care on a personal level. They gave me my fight back."